Children's services privacy notices

Purpose for processing your information

Westminster City Council has a responsibility to encourage, enable and assist young people that are residents in the borough, aged 16 and 17 years at the start of each academic year (and up to 25 years in respect of young people with learning difficulties and/or disabilities), to participate in education, employment or training and to mitigate against the risk of becoming Not In Education, Employment or Training (NEET). 

In line with this responsibility, the council must ensure arrangements are in place to accurately track whether young people are participating in education, employment or training, and submit statutory returns to the Department for Education (DfE) on the number of young people who are NEET or whose current activity is not known. 

The identification of young people who are NEET through this tracking makes it possible for the Councils to offer support and encouragement to young people to re-engage with education, employment or training opportunities, either directly or through commissioned or partner organisations. 

We collect the following information

The information that is collected includes the following:

• personal and family details: name, age, gender, language, parent/carer name
• personal sensitive information: ethnicity, religion
• contact details: phone number, email address, home address
• education/employment details: education setting, academic year

If a young person is not participating in education, employment or training, additional information may be collected as follows to allow the Council to offer appropriate support:

• qualifications and achievements
• interests and ambitions
• Special Educational Needs or Disabilities (SEND)
• physical or mental health or condition
• substance misuse
• offending behaviour
• refugee or asylum seeker
• LGBTQ
• looked after child or care leaver
• teen parent
• young carer

This information is only used for the purposes of tracking young people’s participation in education, employment or training and for the purposes of supporting young people to re-engage with these opportunities if they have become NEET. However, if we intend to use your information for any other purposes we will normally ask you first. In some cases, the council may use your information for another purpose if it has a legal duty to do so, such as to provide further services to you, or if there is a risk of serious harm or threat to life.

How we collect your information

Prospects Services have been commissioned by the council to collect this information on their behalf. The majority of the information is collected directly from schools and colleges.

Prospects Services also collect information directly from young people and/or their parent/Carer in a number of ways, for example, by letter, email, face-to-face, telephone, online forms, surveys.

Who the information is shared with

The council has a statutory duty to report to the DfE the total number of young people who are participating in education, employment or training, the number of young people who are Not in employment, Education or Training and the number of young people whose current activity is not known. 

Information will sometimes be shared with council departments and services. For example, this could be to identify whether a young person is known to council services in order to establish whether they are participating in education, employment or training, where the current activity of the young person is not known. 
Where a young person is identified as NEET, Prospects will gain their verbal consent to make a referral to support or advice services. Residents of the City of Westminster will be referred to the Westminster Employment Service, an in-house council service. 

We will only share information with these organisations where it is appropriate and legal to do so.  We will share information, for example, if there is a risk of serious harm or threat to life, for the prevention and detection of fraud or crime, assessment of any tax or duty or if we are required to do so by any court or law.  
All information will be used in accordance with the Data Protection Act 2018, as informed by the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) legislation, Crime and Disorder Act 1998, Children Act 1989 and 2004, Welfare Reform Act 2012, Localism Act 2011, Local Government Act 1972 and other relevant legislation.

How long do we keep your information? 

Records are archived and stored on the Bi-Borough’s integrated young person’s support system until the young person reaches the age of 25. Access arrangements for suppliers commissioned to act on behalf of the Councils will end once the contract expires, at which point the supplier will no longer have access to the data that is held.

Your rights and access to your information

You have the right to request a copy of the information that we hold about you. The new Data Protection Act 2018 also gives you additional rights that refer to how the council holds and uses your information. Consequently, under certain circumstances, by law you have the right to:

• object to and restrict further processing of your data; however, this may affect service delivery to you
• request to have your data deleted where there is no compelling reason for its continued processing and provided that there are no legitimate grounds for retaining it
• request your data to be rectified if it is inaccurate or incomplete
• have your data transferred or copied should you move to another authority
• not be subject to automated decision-making including profiling​

Information about how to submit a Subject Access Request can be found here.

Please visit our web pages for further details on how the council complies with the new Data Protection Act 2018.

If you have any concerns

Please contact [email protected] if you would like to know more about the information we hold about you and how we use it.

You have a right to complain to us if you think we have not compiled with our obligation for handling your personal information; please visit our complaints page.  

If you are not satisfied with the council’s response you have a right to complain to the Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO). You can report a concern by visiting the ICO website

Changes in your circumstances

You must notify us immediately if there are any changes in your circumstances and personal details so we can maintain an accurate and up to date record of your information.